thedrifter
05-25-06, 07:09 AM
A Rhodes Scholar With an Unlikely Past
High School Dropout Is Academy Standout
By Ray Rivera
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; SM05
Nicholas Schmitz peered in from the hallway at a familiar scene: rows of adolescent boys with mussed hair slumped at their desks, each properly attired in shirts and ties and khaki pants -- the dress code of privilege and promise.
Years earlier, Schmitz had occupied the same desks at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, an aimless teenager who seemed determined to flout that promise. He skipped class, pulled pranks and so flustered school administrators that he was asked not to return.
"Oh, my gosh, it's Nick," Bill Mohan said after spotting him. The Latin teacher wrapped an arm around his surprise visitor last week and ushered him to the front of the class.
"Nick used to go here," he announced, then said with a warm chuckle, "For a while."
Schmitz's school-days troubles are easy to laugh about now. Tomorrow, he will stand alongside nearly 1,000 other midshipmen graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy.
For the 23-year-old Bethesda native, it will be the latest point on a map that reads like this: high school dropout, U.S. Marine, second in his class at Annapolis and, after tomorrow, 2nd lieutenant. Along the way he double-majored in economics and political science, learned to speak Japanese and won a Rhodes scholarship, which will take him to Oxford for two years before he returns to active duty in the Marines.
How he went from rebelling against authority at every turn to flourishing in a famously regimented institution is something even he can't explain.
"It doesn't make much sense," he said, flashing the elfin smile that bedeviled the nuns at his grade school. "I can't go back now and psychoanalyze myself."
There were no drug problems, no poverty or learning disabilities, no hidden trauma at his spacious brick Colonial home. Yet from the time he was in grade school, Schmitz, the third oldest of eight siblings, rebelled. He sassed teachers, hurled spit wads at friends during tests and launched water balloons across the quad at Little Flower School, a Roman Catholic elementary school in Bethesda.
"Why are you doing this?" his parents asked.
"I'd tell them, 'I don't know,' " he said. "And I really didn't know."
His school antics didn't mesh with the quiet Nick they knew at home. On family trips, he rarely spoke, reading or listening to music instead, until one of his siblings would blurt: "Tell Nick to shut up."
"That was always the joke in our family," his father, Joe Schmitz, recalled.
Tests confirmed what his parents suspected: Their son was smart. He earned A's and B's with little effort, took stereos apart and put them back together, and focused with laser intensity on projects that captured his interest. But when he was 13, his class disruptions grew so frequent that the nuns asked his parents to send him elsewhere. Schmitz transferred to a public grade school.
The pattern later repeated itself at Georgetown Prep, an all-boys Jesuit school where his father had been class president and his uncle had been at the top of his class academically. Schmitz loitered in the school parking lot, dipped tobacco and jammed to the Beastie Boys in his brother's beat-up Vanagon. He was suspended after cursing at a school counselor, and then, after the headmaster caught him skipping class, was sent off to public school.
Schmitz, who had turned to sports to burn his tightly coiled energy, joined the wrestling team at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda. But a violent collision in practice shattered his nose and the bones around it. Unable to wrestle, he began skipping school for days at a time until he finally confronted his parents midway through his junior year.
"He said, 'Can I just get a job?' " his dad remembered. "And I said very casually back to him, 'Nick, you're 17. You're old enough to be in the Marines.' "
Nick looked stunned, his dad remembered. "You're kidding," he said. "Can I?"
Joe Schmitz, a successful Washington lawyer, had gone to the Naval Academy and reached the rank of captain in the Navy Reserves. His father had been a Marine fighter pilot. His wife's brother had been a Marine.
"I knew Nick," Joe Schmitz said. "He was a very smart kid. I just think he was unchallenged. I thought the Marines was exactly what he needed."
Nicholas found a recruiter that afternoon, over the objections of his mother, who worried that the Marines would steer him further away from college. That was fine by Nick: "I didn't really want to go to college. I figured I could be some salty gunnery sergeant and I'd be happy with that."
If challenge was the missing cog, Schmitz found it in boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. His new world was filled with rules and uniforms and drill sergeants barking at him. But instead of reverting to his old patterns, Schmitz buckled down.
"It's ironic" he said. "I hate uniforms and I join the Marines, but it was self-imposed. I was there by my choice." After boot camp, he was sent to train in computer networks. He reached corporal by age 18, unusual in the Marines, and was assigned to the Pentagon. To further his career, he took computer courses at Northern Virginia Community College.
Then, almost on a lark, he applied to the Naval Academy, which reserves a select number of slots for enlisted personnel each year. Those who get in are usually sent to the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Rhode Island to polish their study skills. Schmitz, who didn't have a high school diploma or a GED, was turned down. But when a slot at the preparatory school unexpectedly opened, he was invited, on the condition that he receive a GED.
Bill Miller, the school's academic dean, has seen the likes of Schmitz before: students with sub-par high school records who "just came in here and blew the place away."
"When we're kind of bragging about the place amongst each other, we say we go out and find the best talent we can find and then give them great opportunities to grow," Miller said. "So we get kids who've got superb talent but haven't really blossomed yet."
So maybe Schmitz's story is that simple. Maybe he just hadn't blossomed yet. Maybe he just needed a bigger challenge. "I would imagine he was bored in high school," Miller said.
Or maybe he just needed to chart his own course.
Schmitz returns to Georgetown Prep every so often to watch his youngest brother play lacrosse or to visit former teachers whom he still counts among his friends. He received a 4-by-6 card this year congratulating him for his Rhodes scholarship. It was from the headmaster who'd kicked him out.
"That felt kind of good," Schmitz said.
Ellie
High School Dropout Is Academy Standout
By Ray Rivera
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; SM05
Nicholas Schmitz peered in from the hallway at a familiar scene: rows of adolescent boys with mussed hair slumped at their desks, each properly attired in shirts and ties and khaki pants -- the dress code of privilege and promise.
Years earlier, Schmitz had occupied the same desks at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, an aimless teenager who seemed determined to flout that promise. He skipped class, pulled pranks and so flustered school administrators that he was asked not to return.
"Oh, my gosh, it's Nick," Bill Mohan said after spotting him. The Latin teacher wrapped an arm around his surprise visitor last week and ushered him to the front of the class.
"Nick used to go here," he announced, then said with a warm chuckle, "For a while."
Schmitz's school-days troubles are easy to laugh about now. Tomorrow, he will stand alongside nearly 1,000 other midshipmen graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy.
For the 23-year-old Bethesda native, it will be the latest point on a map that reads like this: high school dropout, U.S. Marine, second in his class at Annapolis and, after tomorrow, 2nd lieutenant. Along the way he double-majored in economics and political science, learned to speak Japanese and won a Rhodes scholarship, which will take him to Oxford for two years before he returns to active duty in the Marines.
How he went from rebelling against authority at every turn to flourishing in a famously regimented institution is something even he can't explain.
"It doesn't make much sense," he said, flashing the elfin smile that bedeviled the nuns at his grade school. "I can't go back now and psychoanalyze myself."
There were no drug problems, no poverty or learning disabilities, no hidden trauma at his spacious brick Colonial home. Yet from the time he was in grade school, Schmitz, the third oldest of eight siblings, rebelled. He sassed teachers, hurled spit wads at friends during tests and launched water balloons across the quad at Little Flower School, a Roman Catholic elementary school in Bethesda.
"Why are you doing this?" his parents asked.
"I'd tell them, 'I don't know,' " he said. "And I really didn't know."
His school antics didn't mesh with the quiet Nick they knew at home. On family trips, he rarely spoke, reading or listening to music instead, until one of his siblings would blurt: "Tell Nick to shut up."
"That was always the joke in our family," his father, Joe Schmitz, recalled.
Tests confirmed what his parents suspected: Their son was smart. He earned A's and B's with little effort, took stereos apart and put them back together, and focused with laser intensity on projects that captured his interest. But when he was 13, his class disruptions grew so frequent that the nuns asked his parents to send him elsewhere. Schmitz transferred to a public grade school.
The pattern later repeated itself at Georgetown Prep, an all-boys Jesuit school where his father had been class president and his uncle had been at the top of his class academically. Schmitz loitered in the school parking lot, dipped tobacco and jammed to the Beastie Boys in his brother's beat-up Vanagon. He was suspended after cursing at a school counselor, and then, after the headmaster caught him skipping class, was sent off to public school.
Schmitz, who had turned to sports to burn his tightly coiled energy, joined the wrestling team at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda. But a violent collision in practice shattered his nose and the bones around it. Unable to wrestle, he began skipping school for days at a time until he finally confronted his parents midway through his junior year.
"He said, 'Can I just get a job?' " his dad remembered. "And I said very casually back to him, 'Nick, you're 17. You're old enough to be in the Marines.' "
Nick looked stunned, his dad remembered. "You're kidding," he said. "Can I?"
Joe Schmitz, a successful Washington lawyer, had gone to the Naval Academy and reached the rank of captain in the Navy Reserves. His father had been a Marine fighter pilot. His wife's brother had been a Marine.
"I knew Nick," Joe Schmitz said. "He was a very smart kid. I just think he was unchallenged. I thought the Marines was exactly what he needed."
Nicholas found a recruiter that afternoon, over the objections of his mother, who worried that the Marines would steer him further away from college. That was fine by Nick: "I didn't really want to go to college. I figured I could be some salty gunnery sergeant and I'd be happy with that."
If challenge was the missing cog, Schmitz found it in boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. His new world was filled with rules and uniforms and drill sergeants barking at him. But instead of reverting to his old patterns, Schmitz buckled down.
"It's ironic" he said. "I hate uniforms and I join the Marines, but it was self-imposed. I was there by my choice." After boot camp, he was sent to train in computer networks. He reached corporal by age 18, unusual in the Marines, and was assigned to the Pentagon. To further his career, he took computer courses at Northern Virginia Community College.
Then, almost on a lark, he applied to the Naval Academy, which reserves a select number of slots for enlisted personnel each year. Those who get in are usually sent to the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Rhode Island to polish their study skills. Schmitz, who didn't have a high school diploma or a GED, was turned down. But when a slot at the preparatory school unexpectedly opened, he was invited, on the condition that he receive a GED.
Bill Miller, the school's academic dean, has seen the likes of Schmitz before: students with sub-par high school records who "just came in here and blew the place away."
"When we're kind of bragging about the place amongst each other, we say we go out and find the best talent we can find and then give them great opportunities to grow," Miller said. "So we get kids who've got superb talent but haven't really blossomed yet."
So maybe Schmitz's story is that simple. Maybe he just hadn't blossomed yet. Maybe he just needed a bigger challenge. "I would imagine he was bored in high school," Miller said.
Or maybe he just needed to chart his own course.
Schmitz returns to Georgetown Prep every so often to watch his youngest brother play lacrosse or to visit former teachers whom he still counts among his friends. He received a 4-by-6 card this year congratulating him for his Rhodes scholarship. It was from the headmaster who'd kicked him out.
"That felt kind of good," Schmitz said.
Ellie